Before you agree to any asking rent, you can pull the same HDB transaction rental data the agent uses. HDB publishes the median rent of approved tenancies for every town and flat type, and it runs a free Check Market Rental Rates tool that shows you what flats in a specific block and street actually rented for over the past year. Used together, these two sources tell you whether a S$3,600 asking rent on a 4-room flat in Toa Payoh is the market rate or a stretch. The catch is that the numbers are self-declared by landlords and tenants, and HDB hides any town-and-flat-type combination with fewer than 20 transactions in a quarter. This guide shows you where the data lives, the latest 2026 figures, and how to read it without getting misled.
Every time a flat is rented out, the landlord must register the tenancy with HDB. HDB aggregates those registrations into the median rent paid, broken down by town and flat type, and releases it quarterly. That dataset is what people mean by HDB transaction rental data, and it is the closest thing Singapore has to an official price guide for renting a public flat.
Two things make it useful. It covers real approved tenancies rather than asking prices on listing portals, and it is free. An agent quoting you a number is often working off the same HDB figures, so pulling them yourself removes the information gap that makes overpaying easy.
It is not a live feed. The median for a quarter only appears after that quarter closes, so in mid-2026 the freshest official town-level numbers are from Q2 2025, with Q1 2026 headline movements reported separately. Treat the medians as a baseline, then adjust for how the market has moved since.
There are two primary sources, and they answer different questions. One gives you the town-wide median; the other narrows it to a specific block.
HDB's Rental Statistics page publishes median rent by town and flat type each quarter, alongside the count of renting-out approvals. The same numbers sit on data.gov.sg as the Median Rent By Town And Flat Type dataset, downloadable as a CSV that runs back to 2005. Use this when you want the big-picture median for a town before you start viewing flats.
HDB also runs an online enquiry, Check Market Rental Rates, where you enter a block, street and flat type to see what comparable flats nearby rented for over the past year. This is the one to use once you have a specific unit in front of you, because a town median hides the gap between a renovated high-floor unit and a tired ground-floor one in the same estate.
Below is the median rent by town and flat type from HDB's most recent town-level release, Q2 2025. An asterisk in HDB's own table means fewer than 20 transactions that quarter, so the median is suppressed; those rows are left out here. Q2 2025 saw 10,066 renting-out approvals, the highest quarterly count since 2022, so most towns had enough volume to report.
Read these as the middle of the range, not a ceiling or a floor. Half of approved tenancies in each cell came in below the figure shown.
| Town | 3-room | 4-room | 5-room |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ang Mo Kio | $2,800 | $3,400 | $3,850 |
| Bedok | $2,800 | $3,300 | $3,600 |
| Bishan | $2,950 | $3,600 | $4,000 |
| Bukit Batok | $2,600 | $3,250 | $3,500 |
| Bukit Merah | $3,000 | $3,900 | $4,200 |
| Bukit Panjang | $2,700 | $3,000 | $3,300 |
| Central | $3,250 | $4,440 | $5,150 |
| Choa Chu Kang | $2,550 | $3,150 | $3,200 |
| Clementi | $3,000 | $3,900 | $3,900 |
| Geylang | $2,800 | $3,600 | $3,900 |
| Hougang | $2,700 | $3,200 | $3,400 |
| Jurong East | $2,800 | $3,400 | $3,700 |
| Jurong West | $2,800 | $3,370 | $3,600 |
| Kallang/Whampoa | $3,000 | $3,600 | $4,000 |
| Punggol | $2,800 | $3,200 | $3,250 |
| Queenstown | $3,000 | $4,000 | $4,400 |
| Sembawang | — | $3,100 | $3,200 |
| Sengkang | $2,800 | $3,100 | $3,300 |
| Serangoon | $2,800 | $3,500 | $3,650 |
| Tampines | $2,800 | $3,400 | $3,650 |
| Toa Payoh | $2,900 | $3,600 | $3,980 |
| Woodlands | $2,500 | $3,000 | $3,300 |
| Yishun | $2,630 | $3,100 | $3,500 |
The pattern in the data is consistent: the Central region carries a heavy premium, and the northern and western edges are where the savings are. On the Q2 2025 medians, a 4-room flat in Woodlands or Bukit Panjang sat at S$3,000 against S$4,440 in Central, a gap of more than S$1,400 a month, or over S$17,000 across a two-year lease.
Heading into 2026 the picture stayed broadly the same but with smaller moves. Reported Q1 2026 figures put 3-room median rent around S$2,200 and 4-room around S$2,600 at the all-island level, with 3-room, 4-room and 5-room rents up roughly 1.1%, 0.9% and 0.6% quarter on quarter while executive flats slipped about 0.4%. For 5-room flats, Sembawang, Choa Chu Kang and Punggol have become the cheapest options, overtaking Woodlands during 2025.
If you want the full town-by-town breakdown including executive flats and named cheapest estates, the close looks in our HDB rental price guide and the latest HDB rent prices report go further than the medians alone.
HDB is explicit that the rents are self-declared in the renting-out application and that it does not verify the figures. A landlord could under-declare to soften the optics, and a one-off luxury tenancy can drag a small sample upward, which is why a false S$8,000 listing once triggered public questions about whether the data could be gamed.
Two guardrails matter. First, HDB suppresses any town-and-flat-type cell with fewer than 20 transactions in the quarter, because a handful of deals is not representative. If your target town shows a dash or asterisk for the flat type you want, fall back to the block-level Check Market Rental Rates tool. Second, because the figure is a median of declared rents, it tells you the midpoint, not your ceiling. Use it to sense-check an asking rent, not to assume you will get the median.
The point of pulling HDB transaction rental data is to walk into a negotiation already knowing the number. A clean workflow takes about ten minutes.
Transaction data answers what to pay, not whether to rent at all. If you are weighing a flat lease against committing to a mortgage, model both sides with the rent vs buy calculator rather than guessing.
A few rules shape who can rent and what landlords can do. An owner can only rent out a whole flat after clearing the Minimum Occupation Period of five years, the tenancy must be registered with HDB, and there are caps on the number of occupants and on non-citizen tenants. These rules thin out supply in some towns, which is part of why central estates stay expensive. The longer guide to renting from HDB itself, including the income-tiered Public Rental Scheme, sits in our HDB rental flat guide.
It reflects real approved tenancies, but the rents are self-declared by landlords in the renting-out application and HDB does not verify them. Treat the town median as a reliable baseline while staying alert to outliers, and cross-check a specific flat with the block-level Check Market Rental Rates tool.
HDB hides any town-and-flat-type combination that had fewer than 20 rental transactions in the quarter, because so few deals would not be representative. A dash or asterisk means low volume, not zero rent, so use the Check Market Rental Rates enquiry for that block instead.
It updates quarterly and only after the quarter closes, so in mid-2026 the latest full town-level table is Q2 2025, with Q1 2026 headline movements reported on top. Use the medians as a starting point and adjust for how rents have shifted since the data was collected.
Use HDB's Check Market Rental Rates tool, enter the block, street and flat type, and it shows what comparable nearby flats rented for over the past year. That is more precise than a town median because it captures the immediate area rather than averaging an entire town.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.